


Golden Days

by cecilkirk, sarajevo



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Ryden, trans!Ryan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-26 13:03:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6240367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilkirk/pseuds/cecilkirk, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarajevo/pseuds/sarajevo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan moves to Cali for a summer job to make some quick money before going back to school. He never anticipated leaving with so many memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

It never seemed to stop raining in Seattle.

The flowers and trees were in bloom, the grass outside was green, and it was warm despite the rain. It always seemed like spring in this city, which was good, because the season following hadn’t been all that enjoyable for the past few years.

Ryan watched the street below from his window, his knuckles pressed to the glass. He lived in a nice, quiet apartment building, mostly inhabited by single college students. Ryan hadn’t been in college for a couple years now, but he did fit into the single category.

Early morning sun kissed his knuckles through the glass. He’d been awake longer than he’d liked, his internal body clock forcing him to greet the day before it had even arrived. The lines between nocturnal and diurnal had been blurred. He didn’t know where he stood anymore.

He watches the rain fall, splatter on the concrete sidewalk, destroy itself on its descent. That was nature, though; that was its purpose. And who was he to think himself important enough to stop it? He found himself wanting to save every drop from its demise. What a crime it would be to impede the actions and decisions of nature.

As water rips itself apart below him in a million interminable tragedies, he lets his mind wander. He thinks of what the rain means to him. He thinks of how rain and sea are one in the same. He thinks of everything the sea brings back.

He knows there’s still sand in his bones that he can never wash out.

Exhaustion presses down against his eyes; sleep deprivation was beginning to make his fingers shake. He was becoming bitter, frustrated that regardless of how tired he was, he couldn’t ever rest. Something was preventing him. Someone had wound back his internal clock, and he forced himself to forget who it was.

To rejuvenate his body and clear his thoughts he stands, stretches, walks across his apartment aimlessly. He searches through his room and pretends he’s a ghost in it, like it’s some distant memory. On this morning, it doesn’t take much.

He looks at the shirt draped across the chair he never sits in anymore. It was stuck in the corner of the room, only used now as residence for that floral shirt. _It is so ugly_ , Ryan thought. Per history, it should have made him smile. He had made himself forget whose name was stitched in every petal. It didn’t hold any happiness anymore.

Ryan roots around in his closet, digging out all the boxes and trash that had accumulated over the years at the bottom of everything. His hands awkwardly stumble across a wide menagerie of boxes and containers, but one sharp corner digs into his palm, and with surreal recognition, he feels himself blush.

He knows exactly what’s inside. He knows to open it now would be to remember the name he’d worked tirelessly to forget.

His fingers are magnetized to the journal within. He knows no happiness will come of opening it, but there’ll be something. Nostalgia, memories--sepia-stained happiness. It’d be stagnant, dead, nothing worth holding again.

Something draws his hands inside the box anyway. Some kind of natural force he doesn’t understand. And who is he to come between nature?

He pries off the top of the shoebox and flips the pages between his fingers, the rustle crinkled from age and water damage. He stops randomly and reads what’s written in his old handwriting, drenched in splotchy ink from a shitty pen mingled with the sea:

_The moon bred new Atlantic life tonight._

God, he remembers that night so well. He could never forget it, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he needed to--

_the salt burned you right out of my eyes._

There’s a burning ache deep in his ribs and clavicles and he feels everything flooding back--every memory, every detail, every taste on his lips and tongue and the name that brought it all together--

_and secrets we’re not proud of were taken with the tide._

Ryan shuts the notebook with more force than he needed. He stuffs it back in its box, back in the bottom of his closet. He puts his hands to his ears and closes his eyes, fighting back in his thoughts the name that keeps coming forward.

He won’t let himself remember.

Even if memories and history were natural, he didn’t want them anymore. He wanted to purge all of it from inside his skull. And yet--

\--And yet he will always know where the notebook, who the shirt belongs to, who he abandoned all those years ago. He could never truly forget; trying to was futile. Some kind of magnetism brings the name to the front of his thoughts, and he doesn’t fight it anymore. He lets it reverberate between his thoughts and doesn’t stop it, even when he can’t breathe, even when his fingers begin to shake against his ears, even when his own rain crashes and splatters in his lap.

After all, who is he to stand in the way of nature?

 

 


	2. chapter 1

“Who the fuck wakes up for work at six in the morning? During summer, even?”

Ryan rolled his eyes at his complaining hostel mate.

“Adults, Jon. Adults with jobs,” Ryan said, tying an apron around his waist.

Five years ago, Ryan was living in a 10-person hostel on the San Francisco bay. He shared a room with the previously homeless Jon Walker, who was usually pretty nice when he’d had a full night’s rest. Ryan was planning on just spending the summer there until he went back for school in the fall.

“I have a job,” Jon mumbled, pulling his blanket over his head.

“Playing guitar on the pier for tips doesn’t count,” Ryan said. Jon grumbled in annoyance.

“Try and score some free food for us today,” Jon said. Ryan grabbed his keys and his wallet sitting on a small table next to the door.

“That’ll be good,” Ryan said. “First day on the job and I have to explain to my boss why I have fries stuffed in my apron.” Jon was sitting up now, his hair a disheveled mess.

“Tell them you’re feeding the less fortunate,” Jon said with a sleepy grin.

“You’re not homeless anymore, you can’t pull that card. Seen my sweatshirt?” Ryan asked, digging around their room.

“It’s not cold out,” Jon said.

In the bottom of pile of not-quite clean clothes, he found it balled-up and hopelessly wrinkled. “But it will be when I get off at seven.” Ryan said, pulling it over himself.

“Seven to seven? Brutal,” Jon said, flopping back down into bed. “Well, have fun. Bring home bacon.”    
  


 

Ryan was taken aback to be greeted at the diner by someone as lovely as Sarah.

“Hey!” she said, grinning widely when they met eyes. “You must be Ryan, right?”

“Yeah,” he says. He thinks to hold out his hand, but hers are full, serving customers at the bar their breakfast and coffee. He feels out of place and in the way as she moves deftly around him, but she doesn’t allow him to feel that way for long.

After a quick scan of the customers to ensure satisfaction, she lets out a brief sigh but smiles nonetheless. “I’m Sarah,” she says. He goes to shake her hand but she holds hers up, moves it a few degrees to the left--a motion to indicate her hands are dirty, but she still wants to welcome him.

Ryan notices himself settling into the peace of business having faded away. It feels like home.

“You ever worked in a place like this before?” Sarah asks, leading Ryan into the back room.

“Yeah,” he says. “Back home I worked at a diner.”

She grins again, bright and easy. “Awesome. I was afraid I would have to train you a lot, and our shifts line up really poorly.” Sarah laughs at herself, easygoing and liquid. “I get off at 10. Think you’ll be all right to handle the rest of your shift alone?

Ryan blinks. “Alone?”

Sarah shrugs. “For now. Some people may be hired later on, but no one else has applied. And it’s not really all that busy--you shouldn’t be too overwhelmed.”

He doesn’t have much of a choice; he needs the money. With annoyance, he remembers it’s not only himself he has to support. “Okay. Yeah, I should be cool.”

Again, Sarah beams, and Ryan feels at peace. “Awesome.”

  
  


The three hours where Sarah and Ryan’s shifts coincide are nothing out of the ordinary, but also nothing short of wonderful. Ryan feels great for being productive, for getting along with Sarah, for feeling comfortable almost immediately at the place he was going to spend the better part of three months.

He was at peace. He felt at home.

And as the hours slipped away, Ryan was surprised to see Sarah leave--10 had come much sooner than he’d anticipated. He waved her away as she said goodbye, only looking up briefly to catch eyes not with her, but her boyfriend.

He was smiling at her with the same illumination as her smiles had. That coupled with their dark hair and confident, elegant motions suggested symmetry--somewhere written in nature, they were perfect for each other. At the door, they share a kiss and hug. Sarah’s boyfriend looks up at Ryan over her shoulder. Politely, Ryan smiles at him, but he doesn’t return it.

Instead, his eyes hold something darker, something shadowed. His eyes flicker over what parts of Ryan isn’t hidden by the counter. When they meet Ryan’s again, his stomach knots.

In one moment, Ryan feels the peace of the diner fade. He watches Sarah’s boyfriend lick his lips before walking out. He is unsure of his place in what little of Sarah’s life he lives in, or what he could live in. Clearing his throat and returning to customers, Ryan’s elbows and words now occupy a wider, broader world. He does not miss the peace. He is ready to leave it behind.

  



End file.
